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Why Some Men have Dogs and Not Wives1. The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.2. Dogs don't notice if you call them by another dog's name.3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor.4. A dog's parents never visit.5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.6. You never have to wait for a dog; they're ready to go 24 hours a day.7. Dogs find you amusing when you're drunk.8. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.9. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, "If I died, would you get another dog?"10. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.11. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a pervert.12. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don't get mad. They just think it's interesting.13. Dogs like to ride in the back of a pickup truck.And last, but not least:14. If a dog leaves, it won’t take half your stuff.To test this theory: Lock your wife and dog in the garage for an hour. Then open it and see who’s happy to see you.
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Don’t Blame Israel First
World opinion should impose more pressure on Hamas military leader Yahya Sinwar.
By Daniel Henninger
As reports come out of the Biden administration about cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas, bear in mind that the goal of one side in the discussions remains the elimination of the sovereign nation of Israel.
Hamas’s 1988 charter continues to call for Israel’s destruction.
Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose wealth subsidizes Hamas’s military operations, has said, “The perpetual subject of Iran is the elimination of Israel from the region.” It remains so.
Despite the recent emergence of cease-fires as a means to end wars, active military conflicts on this scale typically don’t end this way. More often, cease-fires occur when the opposition has effectively been defeated, as Germany and Japan were in World War II.
Thedebate over the terms of the current Israel-Hamas cease-fire proposals turns mainly on whether a stop to the fighting would be permanent or temporary, following a hostage and prisoner exchange. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he wants to reserve the right to resume fighting against Hamas.
Pointedly, the Biden administration’s proposal for a six-week cease-fire includes the withdrawal of Israeli forces from populated areas in Gaza. Such a departure surely would be interpreted as a victory for Hamas, and in particular for its military leader, Yahya Sinwar.
Mr. Sinwar, the primary architect of the Oct. 7 invasion, who presumably resides inside the Gaza tunnel system, should be seen as the central figure in the conflict, more important to its resolution than Mr. Netanyahu or President Biden.
Recent news reports have suggested that Hamas’s so-called political leadership in Qatar is more amenable to ending the conflict than is Mr. Sinwar, though both insist that Hamas retain a primary governing role in Gaza. Mr. Sinwar apparently believes he has Israel bogged down in a quagmire and that international opinion has turned the Jewish state into a pariah, pushing the Israelis toward a settlement on his terms.
As with the airliner attacks on the U.S. mainland on Sept. 11, 2001, which live on simply as “9/11,” the origin of the Israel-Hamas war has been reduced similarly to “Oct. 7.” While the attack in 2001 was mainly about killing Americans, there is a danger in losing sight of the much broader political purposes of Mr. Sinwar’s Oct. 7 invasion.
When it happened, the assault’s events seemed incomprehensibly heinous—the point-blank shootings of innocents, rapes and the abduction of 252 hostages into Gaza (at least 43 of whom are believed to have died in captivity). It is clear in retrospect that the barbarity was Mr. Sinwar’s long-term strategy.
Hamas’s intention was to force the Israel Defense Forces inside Gaza indefinitely, as it pursued Israel’s longstanding policy of freeing hostages. With Hamas holding the captives inside its virtually impenetrable underground city of tunnels, the Sinwar political calculation was correct that images of Israel’s inevitable assault on Hamas in the neighborhoods of Gaza to free hostages would in time transfer international blame onto Israel, aided, of course, by organized Palestinian-Hamas protest groups across the U.S. and Europe.
And finally by Joe Biden. Asked days ago in an interview if he thought Mr. Netanyahu was prolonging the war out of self preservation, the American president replied, “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.” In March, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in an astonishing floor speech that Mr. Netanyahu “no longer fits the needs” of Israel. A belief has emerged in what passes for world opinion that if Mr. Netanyahu can be forced out of office, a “moderate” Israeli leadership will emerge, and somehow the war will end.
Rarely discussed, because it is so incredible, is the assumption that any successor Israeli government would allow the Sinwar-led Hamas to emerge intact, in Gaza, with whatever weaponry it has left. The more plausible reality is that if Hamas and its leadership is to avoid execution or assassination, it will have to plot its next steps somewhere other than the Gaza Strip. Perhaps Spain, Ireland or Norway, each of which has recognized a Palestinian state, would offer to take Hamas in.
An additional reality, which no cease-fire proposal can dispel, is that the elimination of Israel will continue as an active goal of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and some U.S.-based protest groups. On May 31, another anti-Israel divestment group invaded and closed the Brooklyn Museum, carrying signs with slogans such as “No Normalization of Settler Colonialism.”
The debate over the Israel-Hamas war has fallen deeply into a moral imbalance. The conflict’s grinding status quo—with Palestinians and the Israeli hostages continuing to die—has little hope of changing until the statements of foreign leaders, analysts, the media and not least Mr. Biden and his many translators begin to impose serious political and moral pressure on the man who put this horror in motion: Hamas military commander in chief Yahya Sinwar. Blame him first.
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Now that Israel's Gaza Food Operation is succeeding, the mass media no longer reports on this matter or praises Israel rather than blame Israel, No word from Hamas now either.
Double standards prevail everywhere and have become the norm. Does this make the world a better place?
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Plenty of Food Aid Is Getting to Gaza
More, in fact, than before the war. If Palestinians are starving, it is Hamas’s fault, not Israel’s.
By Joel Zivot and Matthew Rabinowitz
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court accuses Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of violating a law against “intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” The statute requires a proof of intent, and the facts disprove the accusation. A new study by a group of Israeli academic nutritionists and physicians finds that more food is being delivered to Gaza today than before the war.
The online dashboard of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, indicates that from January to September 2023, on average 100 food-carrying trucks entered Gaza daily: 27,434 trucks over 273 days. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or Unrwa, reports that the average number of food trucks entering Gaza increased from at least 55 in November to 97 in January and 118 in March 2024.
The study analyzed airdrops and food shipments delivered by land from January through April 2024, based on shipping details provided by international donors and recorded by Cogat, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. These records list the shipment date, consignee, weight and contents of trucks entering Gaza and include aid delivered from multiple sources such as national and private donations. Unrwa lists only U.N. aid through Kerem Shalom and Rafah, the latter now closed by Egypt, ignoring other crossings. In May, Cogat lists 6,335 trucks, OCHA counts 2,797 and Unrwa 1,656. Adding private-sector trucks to the OCHA figure brings the total above 6,000, close to Cogat’s count.
The study revealed that the supply provided an average of 3,374 calories per person daily, well above the 2,100 recommended by the Sphere humanitarian movement as the minimum standard. It also confirms the daily availability of 101 grams of protein and 80.6 grams of fat per person, in compliance with the standards.
The problem is that distribution within a war zone is extremely challenging, and food doesn’t necessarily get to Gazans—or to hostages. When Hamas has had the means to do so, particularly earlier in the war, it has stolen aid, fired rockets from humanitarian zones, and fired at Israeli troops near aid corridors. Despite this, in a survey conducted on March 20 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 96% of Gazans said they could access food and water, albeit often with “great difficulty or risk.”
That’s because Cogat places no restrictions on the admission of humanitarian aid into Gaza, provided it is coordinated in advance with the Israeli authorities and passes through legitimate security screening. So far, 98.7% of all aid trucks sent were approved and entered the Gaza Strip. Only 1.3%, or 307 trucks, were rejected or sent for repackaging, as they carried unauthorized items that could be reprocessed for warfare and terrorist activities. These numbers demonstrate an intent to aid, not starve.
The ICC’s charges reflect a double standard against the Jewish state that is widespread in international organizations. The study illustrates that the case is factually baseless. Israel has taken concrete actions to ensure the provision of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the heat of battle. This should be recognized as a new standard for the world—the furthest thing imaginable from a war crime.
Dr. Zivot is a physician. Mr. Rabinowitz is a healthcare executive. Elliot Berry contributed to this article.
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